Comments on: LDV members’ survey (5): what you think of the Lib Dem shadow cabinet

By: Liam Pennington

Liam Pennington — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 11:15:17 +0000

Lembit may talk sense but being in the press for all the wrong reasons and being filmed doing, amongst other things, a flippin’ Segway advert and being on a TV show featuring – what was it? – a man playing a piano with his penis?

Had I my way, I know where I’d like to see Lembit Opik…Not in the House of Commons, for one…

By: Sesenco

Sesenco — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 10:17:31 +0000

Julia Goldsworthy should be at the bottom of the list (is there a “below bottom place” category?). She is an authoritarian conservative in favour of marshal law for young people. What is she doing in the Shadow Cabinet in the first place? I thought our spokespeople were supposed to be liberals.

One or two comments:

Steve Webb has the handicap of a Birmingham accent. He is actually a lot better than he looks.

Norman Baker’s high rating is welcome. More power to his elbow.

Lembit has terrible judgment about women, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a good politician. When he opens his mouth he does tend to talk sense.

Jeremy Browne ought to do better. He suffers from a low media profile. Perhaps Mr Clegg should put him in the spotlight more.

By: crewegwyn

crewegwyn — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 10:01:15 +0000

Couple of points :

I’m amazed that anybody outside the rarified atmosphere of Westminster and/or legal circles would have the faintest idea what a “Shadow Solicitor General” does, never mind whether David Howarth does it well !!! I met David during the C&N byelection, but don’t recall solicitor generalling being a big issue on the Market Square !!

One other (tongue in cheek) observation. Wonder if we have any members who would regard “quite” as a stronger position than “very”. Is xxxxx quite ineffective or very ineffective? ‘Oh, he’s quite ineffective’ [meaning totally ineffective, as opposed to meaning rather ineffective]. Such are the subtleties of your strange English language ……

By: James Graham

James Graham — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 09:40:04 +0000

Tristan – to be fair that is the nature of online polls that include an “indifferent” option – most people do these in their coffee breaks and don’t want to spend hours agonising over each answer.

Makes sense to remove the option altogether.

As for Clegg’s rating, I’m surprised by the number of people who are rated higher than him.

By: Martin Land

Martin Land — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 09:35:19 +0000

Tristan, we know these people, so we are bound to be more critical; bearing that in mind a positive rating is more difficult than you might think!

I feel this is very much what we would expect, isn’t it? I would agree that Sarah’s post is probably not where she would want to be or should be. I’m VERY PLEASED to see how well David Howarth, my local LD MP is doing – though not at all surprised! Steve Webb? The only one I would disagree on, I’m afraid. If Vince gets a net 96.9%, I’d expect to see Steve around 98.5%.

By: Oranjepan

Oranjepan — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 09:35:02 +0000

I disagree, Tristan.

The DK/NO option is well understood to mean neither positive or negative, so until we can disentangle the two we simply cannot know whether the view is neutral or unknown.

However I tend to agree with you in that there is a strong link between ‘more communication’ and ‘better communication’.

By: john

john — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 09:34:29 +0000

Norman Lamb is doing really well – particularly in the area of mental health – he deserves to be up there.

By: Tristan Mills

Tristan Mills — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 09:00:45 +0000

Some very high Don’t know/No opinion scores for some there which suggests that they are simply unknown (or what they’re doing is unknown) even to the politically aware…
Not a great endorsement of them :/

By: Clegg's Candid Friend

Clegg's Candid Friend — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 08:57:14 +0000

You wrote previously that “Given the tendency of party members to be critical … Nick can probably feel pretty relaxed” about his approval rating of 31%.

In that case, with 97% Vince Cable must be dancing on the ceiling!